10 Days
Welcome to Ecuador! Your family will be amazed and truly astounded by the beauty, culture and diversity of wildlife and geographical locations during this once in a lifetime trip!
Let's go on an adventure!
Day 1
Arrival Quito, Ecuador.
Day 2
Half Day Colonial Quito city tour
Day 3
Flight Quito to Baltra Island, Galapagos Islands
Day 4
Full Day Sierra Negra & Volcan Chico tour
Day 5
Half Day Tintoresas Islets Tour
Day 6
Fly Isabela Island to Baltra
Half Day Yacht tour to North Seymour
Day 7
Full Day Santa Cruz Island Tour
Day 8
Full Day Santa Fe Yacht Tour
Day 9
Morning Divine Bay Tour
Afternoon Charles Darwin Research Station
Day 10
Flight Galapagos to Guayaquil
Oro Verde Hotel Guayaquil Day Room use
With the help of our travel specialists, create a perfect trip planned around your specific interests, tastes and preferences. We will provide helpful tips and honest advice based on first-hand knowledge of the destination.
CONTACT US ABOUT THIS TRIPUpon arriving, you are met and transferred to your hotel.
Depart on a half day guided tour of Quito, Ecuador’s delightful highland capital.
Quito retains the old-world Spanish atmosphere, with golden cathedrals and cobblestone streets.
In fact, colonial Quito was the first World Heritage Site to be proclaimed by UNESCO.
This interesting tour starts in old colonial Quito in the main square where the Presidential Palace, the main Cathedral and some other important buildings can be seen. Continue to Plaza Santo Domingo and walk through “La Ronda”, one of the oldest streets in town, with colonial homes and shops of the early 1600s.
Your walk continues to the City Museum and San Francisco Plaza, with a quick stop to try typical sweets of Quito.
La Compañía de Jesús Church is one of the most beautiful churches in South America or perhaps the world. Finally, it’s up to El Panecillo Hill for a bird’s eye view of the city.
You will be transferred to the airport for your flight to the Galapagos Islands.
Upon arrival, you will be met & assisted to your hotel to begin your Galapagos adventure.
Anticipate an afternoon visit to Sucre´s cave, located about 8 miles of Villamil Port, which is in the agricultural area of the island.
Enjoy a short walk to appreciate the typical vegetation and endemic plants. Continue to Mirador de Mango from where you have panoramic views of southern Isabela and the agricultural area. This is also a place for finch birds observation.
Return to the hotel by dinner.
Today you will visit some of Isabela’s best attractions, the Sierra Negra and Volcan Chico.
Sierra Negra is one of the most active volcanoes of the archipelago, its recent eruption took place in 2005.
We may visit Leon Dormido (Kicker Rock), Punta Pitt or Cerro Brujo. The visiting site will depend on the weekday and Galapagos National Park regulations.
We’ll swim with spotted eagle rays, golden rays, Galapagos sharks, starfish, clams, and fish of every shape, size, and color. With luck, we might even see some menacing but harmless hammerhead sharks! After a full day spent exploring the seas, we head back to town for a delicious dinner and a well-earned rest.
Enjoy a visit to Tintoreras, a group of islets located a short distance from Puerto Villamil.
Reachable only by boat, Tintoreras includes a short walk alongside a maze of narrow lava crevices, broken “AA” lava flows, sandy beaches and stunning coves framed by Mangroves.
Its wildlife ranges from basking marine iguanas, perched boobies and pelicans, stalking herons, Galapagos penguins, sea lions, turtles and white tipped sharks (locally known as tintoreras).
Back to Scalesia Lodge for lunch.
Fly from Isabela Island to Baltra Island. Upon arrival, guests are met by the hotel naturalist guides and accompanied directly to the yacht for your half day boat trip to North Seymour Island.
North Seymour was lifted from the ocean floor by past seismic events, and its origins as a seabed give the island its low, flat profile.
Cliffs only a few meters high form the shoreline, where swallow-tailed gulls sit among the ledges and rocks.
This island is teaming with life! You might have to give way to a passing sea lion or marine iguana; blue-footed booby nests sit beside the trail where mating pairs perform their courtship dance.
Lunch is served on board the yacht Sea Lion. After the visit, the yacht sails to Itabaca channel, from where we cross by bus over Santa Cruz Island to reach the south shore, where the Finch Bay Hotel is located.
PANGA RIDES
Pangas (inflatable dinghies) are the most used surce of accessing the different islands from vessels. Excursions by panga provide an up-close experience for exploring rocky islets, hidden bays, cliff faces, and mangrove estuaries.
KAYAK
Paddling at your own pace is another common way to explore the islands. With the elimination of loud motor noises and a low vantage point, kayaking offers up-close and personal wildlife encounters and the freedom to go wherever your curiosity takes you.
HIKES
Led by Galapagos National Park naturalist guides, daily hikes offer a wonderful insight into the human endeavors, geological history, and wildlife of the islands. Most trails range anywhere from one to three hours and are suitable for all fitness levels and ages with optional extensions for those wanting to hike longer.
SNORKEL
Snorkeling adventures allow visitors to explore below the water’s surface and see for themselves the unique and distinct marine life, for which the Galapagos are renowned. Instruction and all gear is provided and little or no experience is required.
After breakfast, our guests will leave Academy Bay to the lush highlands of Santa Cruz Island.
From there a short drive across the farming area will lead us to El Manzanillo. Manzanillo is on the natural path tortoises take every year as they migrate to higher moist locations during the garúa season (June-September), or when they descend to the warmer lowlands during the wet season.
Year round, tortoises can be seen grazing on the surrounding vegetation or wallowing in muddy banks or in a small red-colored pond (impressively colored by surface red pondweeds).
Lunch will be served in the cooler highlands, with the stunning views of Santa Cruz Island. After lunch, we visit a small farm, where coffee, sugar cane and cocoa beans are grown, harvested and prepared – all organic and sustainable. We have the chance to taste the products while learning about the artisanal way to burn island spirits!
Santa Fe offers one of the more beautiful and sheltered coves in the archipelago.
Its turquoise lagoon is protected by a peninsula of tiny islets forming an ideal anchorage. A wet landing on a sandy white beach brings us into contact with one of the many sea lion harems. Bulls vie for the right to be Beach Master, while smaller males masquerade as females and make stealthy mating moves. Galápagos hawks are often easily approached, perched atop saltbushes.
The giant prickly pear cactus found here live up to their name, with tree-sized trunks!
Our goal is to spot one of the large species of land iguana, native to Santa Fe. Beige to chocolate brown in color with dragon-like spines, these huge iguanas truly resemble dinosaurs. An indigenous species of rice rat also inhabits the island, and lucky hikers can spot harmless Galapagos snakes. After the hike, there is nothing more inviting than a swim in the calm waters of the bay, a great snorkeling opportunity with diverse marine life.
This morning, depart to the quiet and wildlife rich Divine Bay.
Named after one of the islands first settlers, this cove is protected from the swells by natural volcanic reefs on one side, by a gallery of mangrove trees on the other, and cliffs created eons ago by the uplift of the lava plateau. The whole area provides a wonderful natural shelter for wildlife.
We can explore this lovely cove by boat while more adventurous guests could take the tandem, sit-on-top kayaks straight from the hotel’s beachfront.
The morning’s visit includes snorkeling on a calm, but active, sector of the cove. This is next to a wooden dock we use to explore Punta Estrada. A dry landing and a short walk will lead us to the south shore of the island, to a small beach called “Playa de los Perros” (Dog Beach). This is a great place to see intertidal organisms and learn about marine iguanas in their nesting sites.
Also, there’s a nearby natural terrace from where young white-tipped reef sharks can be observed from above as they swim about the lava crevices. After this morning’s visit, we return to the Finch Bay Hotel. Afternoon visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station and the giant tortoise-breeding program, with time to enjoy the town.
After breakfast, we leave the Finch Bay Hotel and on the way to Baltra, stop at the Twin Pit Craters, great geological depressions of volcanic material formed by a long process of slow sinking of the ground, where exceptional Scalesia trees, ferns, mosses and orchids can be seen in the surroundings. Then, overland transfer to the airport in Baltra for your flight to Guayaquil.
Upon arrival, you will be met and transferred to the hotel, where we have arranged for a day room. At a pre-arranged time, you will be transferred back to the airport for your departure flight from Ecuador.
With the help of our travel specialists, create a perfect trip planned around your specific interests, tastes and preferences. We will provide helpful tips and honest advice based on first-hand knowledge of the destination.
